More bickering in the bad marriage

Oakland’s relationship with the A’s is starting to resemble a dissolving marriage in which one party has a long list of complaints but still thinks the couple can work it out — and the other just wants to move on.

A’s minority partner Guy Saperstein has an op-ed in the Trib today in which he counters city attorney John Russo’s attack on the team and says: “The time is long past for platitudes and empty rhetoric from grandstanding politicians who aspire to be the next mayor. If you have a secret stadium site and plan that no one else has yet seen, Mr. Russo, let’s see it.”

Meanwhile, San Jose watches and waits for baseball’s blue ribbon committee to start looking at the Giants’ territorial rights. Factoid: In 1970, two years after the A’s moved west, the population of Oakland was 361,000, while San Jose was only at 204,000. Today, Oakland has barely budged at 372,000, while San Jose is the nation’s 10th largest city, just reaching 1 million. Probably more important is the disparity in the number of season-ticket-buying Fortune 500 companies located near the cities.

It’s obvious why San Jose is the A’s new flame, but of course the team is just getting over a torrid affair with Fremont that didn’t work out, so maybe it’ll be stuck in the bad marriage for a long time yet. Hard to see how it gets any better, though.